


i ask you, i beg of you

by thewalrus_said



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Anal Sex, Blink-and-you-miss-it reference to suicidal ideation, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Dancing, Don't copy to another site, M/M, Magical cures for depression, Mild Angst, So Much Dancing You Don't Even Know, miracle lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewalrus_said/pseuds/thewalrus_said
Summary: The god was shorter than him, he was faintly surprised to note, although not by much. His hair and eyes were as dark as the idol’s, but more inviting; the hair called to Viktor’s fingers, and the eyes pushed past his defenses to gaze into his mind. “Tell me how I can help,” the god said again.“I can’t feel,” Viktor heard himself say, helpless under those eyes. The god cocked his head to one side, inviting Viktor to go on. “Anything. I can’t feel anything.”(Cut off from all his emotions, Viktor makes a deal with a local god to get his feelings back. Both of them get more than they bargained for.)
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 36
Kudos: 182





	i ask you, i beg of you

**Author's Note:**

> This was born out of a random idea in Kaz's server. Enjoy!

Viktor stumbled into the grove almost by accident, even though he’d been searching for it for hours. It was small, trees pressing in close on every side, but compared to the thickness of the forest, he could finally breathe easily. This was the grove he’d been looking for; he could tell by the small idol set up at the far end.

He bent over, hands on his knees, and caught his breath, then straightened and walked over to it. The idol was perched in the fork between two branches on a small sapling; a small figure of a man with painted dark hair and eyes. Viktor kissed his fingers and pressed them to the idol’s head, then dropped to his knees.

He’d spent weeks planning this speech, but of course it all flew from his head as soon as his knees hit the ground. Viktor searched for words for long minutes before finally sighing and simply saying, “Please. Please, I need help. I need _your_ help. I don’t know how much longer I can go on on my own.”

Viktor knelt there, hands pressed together and eyes squeezed shut, until finally there was a warm pressure on his shoulder and a warmer voice saying, “Tell me how I can help you.”

“May I stand?” Viktor asked, keeping his eyes shut tight. “May I look at you?”

“Of course.” The voice sounded amused. Viktor pushed himself to his feet and turned around, opening his eyes.

The god was shorter than him, he was faintly surprised to note, although not by much. His hair and eyes were as dark as the idol’s, but more inviting; the hair called to Viktor’s fingers, and the eyes pushed past his defenses to gaze into his mind. “Tell me how I can help,” the god said again.

“I can’t feel,” Viktor heard himself say, helpless under those eyes. The god cocked his head to one side, inviting Viktor to go on. “Anything. I can’t feel anything.”

“Physically?”

“No, I don’t mean that.” Viktor shook his head. “I mean... Happiness, or joy, or excitement. Hell, even grief or sadness or pain. I don’t feel _anything,_ it’s just... It’s just numbness, constant, day after day.”

“Just gray?” The god was unblinking in his gaze, pinning Viktor in place. Viktor nodded, and the god frowned, his perfect lips turning down. “That is a problem, for I can tell your emotions are normally rich and lovely. How long has this been happening?”

Viktor shrugged. “A year? Two? Who can tell the passage of time when every day looks the same?”

“And what is it you want from me?”

“Give me my feelings back?” Viktor could hear the crack in his own voice as he said it, could hear how _ridiculous_ it sounded, but there was nothing else to say but the truth. “Or tell me how to do it myself. I can’t keep living like this. It’s either a cure or...”

The god was shaking his head before Viktor could finish. “No. That isn’t an option, you’re too precious.” Viktor felt himself flush. “And what do you offer in return?”

“Anything.” Viktor spread his hands. “I’ll do anything, I’ll give anything, anything you want is yours.”

The god shook his head again. “I don’t work in blank checks, Viktor. Make me an offer, and I’ll tell you if the trade is fair.”

Viktor raked his eyes over the god, desperately searching for a clue. The god was lean and muscular, his robes clinging to his form as they fell down from his shoulders. His face was bright and intelligent, and his hands looked nimble, one resting against his cheek as he regarded Viktor. He stood with his weight borne on one leg, the other foot almost pointed as it rested in the grass. An athlete’s stance; a dancer’s stance.

“A dance,” Viktor said, following his sudden flash of inspiration. “Give me an answer and I’ll give you a dance. I’m a trained dancer, and all my instructors said I was the best they’d ever seen.”

A slow smile uncurled across the god’s face, as though regarding a pupil that had given the right answer. “Clever. A payment you can only give after services rendered.”

“I can dance without feelings,” Viktor said. “I can pay you upfront.”

The god smirked. “No. I want you at your best. Let’s split the difference, shall we?” He took a step forward, and then another, and then Viktor found himself in the god’s arms, one hand holding his up by their shoulders and the other wrapping firmly about his waist. “Are you ready?” he murmured, his breath a warm fragrance against Viktor’s face. Viktor felt a stirring in his chest that he hadn’t felt in at least a year, and he nodded. The god began to move.

 _Excitement,_ Viktor identified as the god swept him into a pared-back tango. That was the feeling blooming in his chest, for the first time in so, so long. Excitement, to see what this god could do.

Next was joy, the pure joy of physical movement that had been missing from all his dances since he first started to get sick. The god led him through the steps perfectly, his eyes never twitching away from Viktor’s even as he navigated them around the grove, which seemed to have grown from what Viktor could see in his periphery.

Passion, determination, enjoyment flicked through his veins next, swirling around each other in a heady mixture that made Viktor drop his left hand to the god’s waist and take control of the dance. The god accepted the shift with a quicksilver grin, and followed without missing a beat as Viktor made the steps more complicated, the spins sharper, the turns cleaner. Viktor took every emotion, every shiny new recovered feeling, and poured them into the dance, and was rewarded with the subtle pinking of the god’s cheeks as they swirled around each other.

And then there was another feeling, one Viktor hadn’t felt since his mother died, starting warm and gentle in his heart and spreading out until it was in his fingertips and toes, lost as he was in the god’s eyes. Love, love, love filled him until he was ready to burst with it, and he saw it echoed in the god’s gaze, the way his hand tightened in Viktor’s, the way he bit his lip as Viktor looked down at him.

Viktor brought the dance to a close, and somehow, despite their perfect hold, their mouths were bare centimeters from each other, open and reaching. Viktor held very still, his upper lip just a breath away from grazing against the god’s, and the god’s eyes fell shut. He seemed to be wrestling with something, something that caused him pain. Finally he tipped his mouth away ever-so-slightly and said, “No.”

“Why not?” There was anguish in Viktor’s voice, and as he searched he felt it in his body too. The god sighed and pressed their foreheads together, eyes still closed.

“To kiss a god is an irrevocable thing,” he said, dropping Viktor’s hand to put both of his own on Viktor’s waist. “You would be changed, utterly, as would I. Right now you’re feeling every emotion in sequence as they are returned to you; you’re not in your right mind. I can’t let you make such a decision until you are.”

Pain and a deep, deep sadness washed over Viktor until his eyes were stinging with tears. Maybe the god had a point, he conceded as he blinked them away. “When?” he asked, his voice unsteady in his own ears. “When will I be in my right mind again, when can I choose you?”

“It will be a long time,” the god said.

“Months? A year?”

“Closer to a year, I would say, until you are fully recovered.”

Viktor sighed and, hardly believing his own daring, reached up to caress the place where the god’s throat met his jaw. “Then I’ll choose you in a year. Will you let me?”

“I shouldn’t,” the god said, but Viktor knew better. Sure enough, he went on, “But yes. I’ll come back in a year.”

“Come back sooner,” Viktor implored, desolate at the thought of waiting a year to see him again. “How can I make my decision if I don’t know you? If I don’t see you for a year, I’ll just put you on a pedestal, and that won’t be a true decision either. Come more often than that, so I can come to know you and you can come to know me.”

“I knew you the second you knelt before my image.” The god finally opened his eyes and tipped his head back to resume gazing into Viktor’s. “Fine. I can get away monthly.”

“Monthly is perfect.” _Daily_ would have been better, Viktor thought privately, but if monthly was the best he could get, he would be grateful.

“Are you hungry?” the god asked.

Viktor consulted himself. “Starving, actually.”

The god smiled. “That was quite a dance we had. Join me for a meal before I have to go.” He turned to look to Viktor’s right; when Viktor followed his gaze, he saw a small table, laden with food, that had not been there before.

The god made to step away, but Viktor held tight. “What’s your name?” he asked.

His smile widening, the god leaned forward until his cheek was pressed against Viktor’s temple, the soft skin of his lips just barely not skimming Viktor’s ear, and whispered, “Yuuri.”

“Yuuri.” The name felt holy on his tongue. Viktor clutched his fingers into the fabric of the god’s—of _Yuuri’s_ robes and clung on, nearly shaking with rediscovered longing and desire. Yuuri allowed himself to be held for a long moment before stepping back and disentangling himself. He took Viktor’s hand, to soothe the sting, and led him to the table.

The food was utterly unfamiliar to Viktor, strange fruits and meats and cheeses he had never seen before, but it all smelled divine, and Viktor fell to. There was soft, fragrant bread and spiced wine of a vintage Viktor did not know, and every bite and sip was more delicious than the last. Yuuri ate too, just as rapaciously, and soon the food was gone. “Thank you for the meal,” Viktor said, when the last crumbs were gone.

“It was my pleasure, Viktor,” Yuuri said. “I must go now. Will you be able to find your way back next month?”

“You could move the grove every month and I would still find it, if it meant seeing you again,” Viktor vowed. Yuuri blushed prettily. He reached out and covered Viktor’s hand with his own, and then, in a heartbeat, he was gone.

Viktor had half-feared that his new contact with his feelings would fade without the heat of Yuuri’s presence, but it did not; he found himself weeping and laughing and dancing in turn, and the month passed quickly. On the appointed day, he found the grove again without trouble, and to his delight he found Yuuri waiting for him.

“Did you fear I wouldn’t come?” he asked, stepping past the last treeline. Yuuri whirled as if startled, color in his plush cheeks. Laughing at himself, he nodded and stepped forward. Viktor did the same, and soon enough they were in each other’s arms again. “Dance with me?” Viktor murmured.

“Please,” Yuuri said, desperation in his voice. Viktor laughed, loud and bright, and swept him into a salsa dance.

Yuuri met him beat for beat, music seeming to emanate from his crisp, energetic movements, and Viktor was breathless by the time they swept to a close. “Beautiful,” he whispered, looking at Yuuri’s flushed cheeks and heaving chest.

“I could say the same,” Yuuri said, pressing his forehead to Viktor’s. “Your instructors were right. You’re the best dancer I’ve ever danced with.”

Viktor glowed, both the praise and Yuuri’s nearness making his heart thrum faster in his chest. “I’ve never danced with anyone like you,” he said honestly. “It’s like you know what I’m thinking before I think it.”

“There are perks to being a god,” Yuuri said, teasing.

Viktor laughed. “You can read my mind?” He thought of kissing Yuuri, of pressing his hot mouth to those sweet arched lips and slipping his arms around the god’s back.

Yuuri blushed as though he really could see Viktor’s thoughts, but shook his head. “No, although when you make it that obvious I can guess. I think it’s just compatibility.”

“Lucky me.”

There was food again, the same stuff Viktor had dreamed about after last time. They ate heartily, tired and hungry after their exertions. “Tell me about yourself,” Yuuri prompted, taking a sip of wine.

Viktor shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell. I’m a dance instructor, although I don’t have many students. I don’t need them, luckily; my parents left me plenty to live on when they died.”

“They died?” Yuuri’s voice sounded solemn, and when Viktor looked up at him, his face matched. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Viktor.” He covered Viktor’s hand with his own.

Viktor turned his hand over and interlaced their fingers. “Thank you, but it was a long time ago.”

“Is that what stole your feelings?”

Viktor shook his head, using his left hand to continue eating. “Nothing stole them, it wasn’t as abrupt as that. I just woke one day and realized I hadn’t felt anything in as long as I could remember.”

“Is it better now?” Yuuri asked, taking a bite of bread and cheese.

“Yes.” Viktor squeezed Yuuri’s hand. “It’s much better now. Even more so when I’m with you,” he added, just to see Yuuri’s pretty blush again.

The next month they foxtrotted, and the one after that was a treacherous mambo that Yuuri took the lead on. There was food and conversation after each dance, and Viktor learned about Yuuri’s family and talked more about his own life. “There’s no one to miss me,” he said the fifth time, after a waltz that had left him aching in his trousers for how closely they had been pressed together. “No real friends, no family left. There are other instructors for my students.”

Yuuri tilted his head to one side, fingers idly stroking the back of Viktor’s hand. “There are people where I live who would love you,” he said quietly. “I can think of several gods off the top of my head who would flock to you like sheep to a shepherd.”

“Then why make me wait?” Viktor asked, trying desperately to master his frustration. His emotions were settled by now; he’d made his choice. But Yuuri only shook his head.

“A year was the deal, and the deal must be kept to. I’m sorry, Viktor,” he added, reaching up to stroke along Viktor’s cheek. “But it isn’t that long, compared with forever.”

Viktor sighed, turning his hand into Yuuri’s palm, tucking his lips between his teeth to avoid giving into the temptation to kiss the warm skin there. “If I get you forever, I can wait seven more months,” he said. “I can be strong.”

“You have always been strong.”

The sixth month was swing dancing, and they tossed each other around, breathless and laughing from the first step. Seven was a fiery paso doble, and small horns sprouted from the top of Yuuri’s head as Viktor waved his coat in provocation. Eight was a rumba, and nine a cheeky cha cha that swept them through every corner of the expanded grove. After the ninth dance, Yuuri broke some of his rules and told Viktor a little about his home. “It’s small, really,” he said, a small red fruit dripping juice down his hand from where he’d bitten into it. “Just a tiny corner of the gods’ realm, but it’s nice. My family run a hot spring for gods and other spirits, so we know a lot of people, and it’s always lovely to soak in the hot water after you and I dance.”

“I can’t wait to soak in it with you,” Viktor said, earning him a stunning smile from Yuuri. “Tell me about the people you mentioned before, the ones you think would like me.”

Yuuri took another bite, considering while he chewed. “I think Chris will be the first in line,” he said slowly, eyes staring off into the distance. “He’s the god of a volcano on another continent, and he’s a frequent visitor to the hot springs.”

“What’s he like?”

Yuuri snorted. _“Passionate_ is one word for him. He’s a volcano, dearest, he’s hot and fiery and lustful, and funny and loving. Your senses of humor are similar, and he’s desperately curious to know who’s been sweeping me away from home once a month.”

Viktor smiled. “I like him already.”

“Then there’s Yakov. He’s the god of the tectonic plate under our feet—steady, stable, unmoving when he gets his mind made up. He used to be the best dancer in the realm, and now he takes proteges. He’ll snap you up once I arrange an audition. And his wife, Lila, the god of herons, she’ll take you in too if you let her.”

There were tears brimming in Viktor’s eyes; he brushed them away as discreetly as he could manage, and Yuuri did him the courtesy of not mentioning them. “And your family?” he said. “Will they like me?”

Yuuri beamed at him, and it was like feeling the sun on his face. “Viktor, they love you already.”

Their tenth meeting was a merengue, and the eleventh a Viennese waltz. At the meal after the eleventh dance, Yuuri did his level best to convince Viktor not to come back. “You’ll never be able to go home again,” he said, as Viktor ate his fruit and drank his wine and tried not to listen to him. “You’ll be changed, Viktor, irrevocably changed. Your body will not be the same as it was, and you can never get your human body back again.”

“I don’t care,” Viktor said, tossing the heel of his bread down and finally looking at Yuuri. “Take my body, take my heart and my soul, I don’t care. I just want you.”

“What if you don’t always?” Yuuri pressed, leaning in and undermining his point by covering Viktor’s hand with his own. “What if you stop loving me, what if we fall apart? Will you truly not regret everything you gave up to be with me?”

Tears welled up unbidden in Viktor’s eyes and he dashed them away angrily. “I won’t. I’ll always remember how I feel now, how much I _hate_ my life on the days I don’t see you, now that I can hate again, and I’ll know I made the right choice. Now please, Yuuri, _stop.”_

Yuuri was crying too, single tears streaking down his cheeks in succession. “I just don’t want you to have regrets.”

Viktor sighed and put his free hand on Yuuri’s face. “My biggest regret would be walking away from you.”

Yuuri turned his face into Viktor’s palm, careful to keep his lips free. “I had to try.”

“You didn’t,” Viktor said. “But I forgive you.”

Viktor spent the month after that arranging his affairs, shutting down his business and transferring his students to other teachers, and on the day of their twelfth dance, he left home behind without looking back. There was something better in his future.

Yuuri was waiting for him in their grove, as he always was, and Viktor walked into his arms without hesitation. “Dance with me,” Yuuri breathed, wrapping his arms around Viktor’s waist. Viktor slung his over Yuuri’s shoulders, tangling his fingers in that thick, dark hair as he had wanted to do since the first time he saw the god, and they danced, slowly swaying back and forth to the music that came from Yuuri’s body and the places it met Viktor’s. Their breath mingled, and Viktor could see tears beading on Yuuri’s lashes as they moved. Finally, finally, the dance came to a close, and Yuuri tilted his mouth up in the invitation Viktor had waited a year for.

Viktor’s pulse was pounding as he leaned in and carefully, gently brushed his lips against Yuuri’s. He was moving so slowly that it took a moment for their mouths to slot together, but then they were, the pressure and heat everything Viktor had dreamed of. Yuuri made a little sound of wonder and tightened his arms around Viktor, and then the change hit.

Their chests were pressed together, and Viktor could feel them tear open, his heart lunging forward and to the right to meet Yuuri’s in the middle. The two hearts merged, becoming a single pulsating organ that somehow sank back into both their chests, the skin reknitting itself as they were joined. Viktor gasped against Yuuri’s mouth at the sensation, Yuuri’s blood beating through his veins, and Yuuri took the opportunity to slip his tongue into Viktor’s mouth to rub and slip against his own.

The kiss devolved in technique as it increased in fervor, until they were clutching at each other and panting. “I need you,” Viktor breathed as Yuuri bit at his lip. “Yuuri, I need you.” Yuuri lifted him and Viktor groaned, raw animal lust pooling in his gut and between his legs. The god bore him to the table that had appeared after their dance finished and laid him out on it. They were both bare, Viktor noted, but he did not have time to wonder where their clothes went before Yuuri was touching him in that most intimate of places. Viktor felt himself stretch and loosen, something slick and wet dripping down his legs and onto the grass.

“Are you ready?” Yuuri asked, stepping between Viktor’s legs. Viktor nodded and held himself open, their shared heart pulsing in his chest as Yuuri lined himself up and sank home with a low groan that Viktor could barely hear over his own scream. Viktor climaxed instantly, the pure pleasure too much for his still-mostly-mortal body to bear, and Yuuri himself lasted only three thrusts before shuddering and stilling deep within Viktor’s body.

They gasped for breath, still locked together, and Viktor drew Yuuri’s face down for another kiss. “I love you,” he said against Yuuri’s lips. “I have loved you from the first time we danced together, and I will love you until the gods’ realm unknits itself and we are undone. I will love you past that, as long as there are parts of me left existing.”

“I have loved you since the moment you knelt in my grove,” Yuuri said, taking Viktor’s lips in a third deep kiss. “You are mine, and I have given myself to you. We are one now, can you feel it?” Viktor nodded. “You can leave me, if you stop loving me, but you can never go back to how you were before.”

Viktor shook his head, wrapping his arms around Yuuri’s shoulders. “I’ll never stop loving you, and I’ll never leave you.”

“Nor I you.” They kissed again, and again, until Yuuri bent back up with a groan and slid himself free of Viktor’s body. Viktor could still feel him inside, the echo of him, and selfishly he hoped it never faded. Their clothes were folded neatly on the table by Viktor’s head, and Yuuri helped him up and to dress again.

Once they were clothed, Yuuri took his hand. “Ready to go home?”

Viktor lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to Yuuri’s fingers. “Readier than I have ever been for anything, save kissing you.”

With a smile and a gentle tug, Yuuri led him out of the grove.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://thewalrus-said.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](http://twitter.com/thewalrus_said)!


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